Monday, April 11, 2016

Jason Rapert says 10 Commandments monument ready for installation

News from the locally produced TV show by televangelist Happy Caldwell. In an interview with Sen. Jason Rapert about the 10 Commandments monument for the Capitol, Rapert says the monument is complete and ready for installation.

He said it could happen in a couple of months. He said the American History and Heritage Foundation, created to raise money for the project, had raised $24,000 — enough for the monument and money left over for continued fund-raisingt to commmission more such monuments elsewhere in Arkansas.

Rapert continues his assertion that this about honoring the foundation of law, not religion. But he also makes it clear that legislative approval is required for monument placement at the Capitol and you get the clear idea that Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, Muslims or whoever wouldn't meet much success in getting approval for their brand of faith.

Several groups have vowed a lawsuit when the installation moves forward — a decision under control of Secretary of State Mark Martin.

Who incorporated the nonprofit foundation? None other than Travis Story, the Fayetteville lawyer who's been leading fights around the state to preserve legal discrimination against gay people. Oh, excuse. To preserve the religious right to not hire, providing housing to or provide services to gay people. And other sinners, presumably.

The Arkansas Democratic Party has waded hip-deep (maybe over its head) into the suddenly hot issue of Confederate statuary. It has called for removal of such monuments to museums or private places.

Another member of Gov. Asa Hutchinson's senior staff is heading for the exit. Kelly Eichler, senior advisor for criminal justice (and a Hutchinson appointee to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees) has given notice she'll be leaving in a couple of weeks.

Former Vice President Al Gore, a former U.S. Senate colleague of Dale Bumpers, sent a statement on Bumpers' death Friday:

The Washington Post has published a map that counts Arkansas as among states that will "partially comply" with a sweeping request for voter data by the so-called election integrity commission set up by Donald Trump in an effort to cast doubt on Hillary Clinton's 3 million-vote popular defeat of him in 2016.

Over to you.

Most Shared

Gospel and R&B singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples, who has been inspiring fans with gospel-inflected freedom songs like "I'll Take You There" and "March Up Freedom's Highway" and the poignant "Oh What a Feeling" will come to Little Rock for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High.

Everything that Donald Trump does — make that everything that he says — is calculated to thrill his lustiest disciples. But he is discovering that what was brilliant for a politician is a miscalculation for a president, because it deepens the chasm between him and most Americans.

Watching the Charlottesville spectacle from halfway across the country, I confess that my first instinct was to raillery. Vanilla ISIS, somebody called this mob of would-be Nazis. A parade of love-deprived nerds marching bravely out of their parents' basements carrying tiki torches from Home Depot.

Most Viewed

A man who says he's a former University of Arkansas student now living in New England has identified himself as the person wearing an "Arkansas Engineering" T-shirt in the Friday white supremacist march in Fayetteville. He apologized for involving UA in the story and to the professor misidentified as being the person wearing the shirt.